


It’s Only Life

by SadLesbianClown



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Biting, Blood, Blood Drinking, Cutting, M/M, Needles, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27375397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadLesbianClown/pseuds/SadLesbianClown
Summary: Tags Explained:Okay there is self inflicted harm/cutting, but it’s done to help someone else not to intentionally do harm to themself, but if that’s a trigger for you, avoid this. There is also a scene with a needle in chapter 4.Simon is bitten by a vampire and Baz does the only thing he can to save him.... turn him into a vampire himself.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Baz**

Ordinarily, it’s Simon who does the stalking, and normally, I wouldn’t care about what errands the Mage sends him on. In fact, I try avoiding the subject all together, the less I know, the better; the safer Simon is from me, from my family. I didn’t mean to learn this piece of information either, I just happened to be within earshot as he explained his mission to Bunce in the library. Even then I didn’t raise an eyebrow, it can’t be the first time the Mage has sent him into a den of vampires. What surprised me is that he would send him there alone. 

I was on my way to the dining hall, a little ways behind them, when Penny gave Simon a squeeze on the arm and turned to walk away, leaving Snow to continue down the path towards the gate. 

I couldn’t be seen, I knew. If he saw me, he’d think I was plotting to sabotage him. That I was defending the nest. I have no excuse to be outside the grounds at this hour. He wanders down the road into town and I trail him, hidden in the trees. I don’t have to see him to follow him. I can hear him. After living with him for so many years, I can distinguish his heartbeat by now.

Once we reach the warehouse I realize, there’s no way for me to stay hidden once inside. I watch him go in and circle to the back of the building trying to find a window to watch from. 

**Simon**

I’m bored walking into town. It’s almost a mile hike down the road, in the dark, and I am missing dinner. When the Mage told me I had to investigate a potential vampire den I thought it could at least wait until after pot roast, but he insisted I do this now. There’s no one on this road at this time. There’s no reason for Normals to come out this way. The Coven must have someone working in the zoning office to make sure nothing is built up by the school. Watford is hidden by magick, obviously, but it still attracts enough trouble to raise questions. 

I swing my sword around trying to occupy myself, balancing along the lines in the road. I put it away when I reach the town. It’s pretty dead this time of night, only the pub is open. 

I finally reach the abandoned warehouse to find it, well, abandoned. No sign that any vampires, or other creatures, magical or not, have been here in quite some time. The Mage must have gotten some bad intel. I poke around a little more anyway, I walked all this way. 

Nothing on the main floor, or the loading dock out back, except for a raccoon living in a dumpster. I’m glad no one was there to see me pull my sword on a trash panda…

I’m just finishing searching the rafters when I hear a noise below me; a metal clanging somewhere in the dark. 

I scurry down as quietly as I can, making my way to where I heard the noise, when a hand grabs my shoulder, whipping me around. 

**Baz**

I was starting to walk back when I heard a clattering at the warehouse. I turned back down the drive and sprinted to the door. That’s when I found him. 

Simon is lying unconscious on the ground in the back of the room. I can only faintly hear his heart beat, he’s dying. I rush toward him when a voice says, “that one’s gone friend, but the pub is letting out if you want to come get a drink with me.” It’s not his fault that he doesn’t understand, I do look like one of them, I _am_ of them, but not in the way he thinks. He doesn’t even get the chance to finish his thought before his neck is cracking beneath my hands. It’s a fast, painless death. It’s not what I would have wanted for him under different circumstances, but Simon is on the floor and he is dying and I don’t have time for revenge. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: this chapter has explicit scenes of blood and self inflicted harm.
> 
> This wasn’t beta read or even proof read if that isn’t clear lol I started writing this earlier this morning and am just winging it

**Baz**

It doesn’t take me long to realize what happened. Simon’s sword is kicked to the side and there are bite marks in his neck. It must have been so quick. 

His heart beat his barely audible. Simon Snow is about to die.

I do the only thing I can do. I have to finish what the monster laying in the corner started. 

He’s unconscious so I’ll have to do it myself. 

I pick up his sword and drag it across my hand. 

I hold my fist over his mouth, pinching his mouth open with my other hand, and squeeze. 

My blood drips into his mouth and I hope. 

Please don’t leave me. 

His heart beat fades as I hold back tears. 

“Please, please don’t leave me”, I whisper. “I love you.”

His eyes bolt open, but they aren’t his. They are black and they are hungry. Suddenly, I am no longer afraid of him dying, I am afraid of him. 

I jump away, but fight the urge to run. I think of being a child. I think of being the little boy who lost his mother. Who _couldn’t_ fight when the vampire took my life. I go limp. I let him take me. 

  
  


**Penny**

I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t let him go alone, the Mage be damned. I went into the dining hall, waiting 10 minutes then followed him to the warehouse. He’d already told me his plan to walk there at dinner time, I think he was hoping I’d follow him, even if he couldn’t ask. 

I expected to save Simon, instead when I reach the door I find someone needing to be saved _from_ him. 

I scream when I see Baz’s body covered in blood. Sitting there hunched over like a rag doll, as Simon gnaws at him. If you had told me one day I would walk into a room to find Si attached at Baz’s neck, this is not what I would have pictured. 

I scream and Simon looks at me, but it’s not him. He’s angry. He stands and starts to lunge for me, and I see fear in Basil’s eyes as he looks between us, helpless. I want to reach for my wand, but I can’t. I am frozen in fear. Before I can do anything, Simon collapses. He falls to the floor, like he’s fainted. I cautiously walk over to him, and call his name, “Simon?” I whisper. He looks up at me with soft blue eyes, as if a child. He opens his mouth to speak, lips quivering slightly, before he falls unconscious again. 

  
  


**Baz**

Oh Bunce, I should have known you would come eventually. 

“What happened?” she starts to ask, angrily, before she turns around and sees me. 

I am crying now. I can’t help it. It’s too much. It’s all too much. I can’t hold it in anymore. I sob softly into my chest, hair falling in my face, blood soaking my robes. 

I look up to see her face sofen. “Can you walk?” she asks instead. 

I nod.

“Then let’s get you boys home.” She says. 

We carry Simon the mile back to Watford. 

Penny doesn’t ask any more questions, and I avoid looking her in the eye. 

We walk in silence, pausing to catch our breath every once in a while. When we get back Snow has to lay off the scones. 

It’s almost sunrise when we make it up to Mummer’s House. 

“Can you watch him?” Penny asks, “I have to get something.”

I nod. There’s not much to watch. I don’t think he’ll wake up for a few more hours.

She returns a half an hour later with gauze and some ointments, which she applies with skilled care. 

“Bunce,” I say finally, she turns to look up at me, “no one can know,” I say. “If the Mage finds out-“

“I know Baz,” she says, “why do you think I took him here and not Ms. Posibelf?”

Of course she knows, I think. I don’t always give her the credit she deserves. 

I leave them there. I need to replenish my blood


	3. Chapter 3

**Simon**

I awake with a head splitting ache in my temples. I don’t know where I am. The last thing I remember was almost attacking a raccoon with a long sword. I hear someone’s voice and it sounds familiar, though I can’t quite make out their words. I try to blink the sleep from my eyes, but the bright light only lets me squint. I can make out a pair of glasses though, and that’s all I need. “Penny.”

“Simon?” She responds. 

“Where am I?”

“You’re back at Mummer’s House.”

“I saw someone.” 

“What?”

“I saw someone, before.”

“What are you talking about Si?”

“Was Baz at the warehouse?” I ask. 

“Yeah. Baz was there. He helped me carry you back to Watford. But Si-“

“Someone bit me. I remember. It stung and then I didn’t feel good.”

“Si-“

“Penny, did Baz bit me?”

“Simon-“

“Pen.”

She huffs. She’s avoiding something. 

I give her the look. The look that says “penny we’ve been best friends for too long, we don’t keep secrets.”

She understands me, she looks away once more before she says delicately, “Simon, all I saw was you biting  _ Baz. _ ”

“What?”

“Si-“

“What happened to me Penny?”

“I don’t know,” she says. 

That’s when I start to panic. Penny always knows everything, that’s kind of her thing. She’s an encyclopedia with hair. 

  
  


**Baz**

I avoid Snow and Bunce for the rest of the day. I ask Niall to take notes for me and tell my teachers I am sick. 

I hide in the woods, giving the Mage’s office a wide berth. I don’t want to be within his range when he finds out. I don’t want to see what he does to Simon. I don’t know what he’ll do to me when he finds out, but the farther away I am when it starts the better. 

I sneak back onto campus later that night. I meet up with Dev and Niall and ask them of the heir’s fate, but they don’t know what I’m talking about. Penny must have kept her word not to tell anyone. I return to our room with my homework, careful to be extra quiet. He has my hearing now. 

He’s asleep thankfully. I put down my books and stare at him a minute. He’s having some kind of dream. He’s twitching slightly and then his fangs drop. It scares me at first. The last time I saw them they were dug in my neck. He must be hungry. I can’t imagine he has figured out how to hunt. I use my wand and cut my arm. My hand has healed already, but I don’t want this new wound to be visible. If for no other reason than the following day I’d have to explain why it isn’t there. 

He suckles at my wrist like a babe, he doesn’t use his teeth this time. When I start feeling faint, I pull away. He whimpers. “Shh, go to sleep Snow.” I whisper and he settles back into rest. 

  
  


**Simon**

Penny says I have to go to classes. I missed first period yesterday because I was sleeping and one of the Mage’s men pulled me aside at lunch to ask me why; I said I slept through my alarm. 

“He can’t find out Simon.” She warned me last night.

“But, Penny, this is me we are talking about he wouldn’t-”

She gives me the look, the look that says “you know I’m right.” 

There are so many unspoken words between us. I’ve had whole conversations with her in meetings with the Mage. A look up, a look to the side, a mouth twitch down, it means “I can’t believe I’m related to that kiss ass brother of mine.” An eyebrow raised in response, “what a twat.” A smile and a look down, “stop it or I’m going to laugh in the middle of Premal’s presentation on why global warming is part of Coven schemes.” I audibly laughed at that, I had to apologize and say I was thinking about a joke from earlier. The Mage scolded me later, something about professionalism and reputation. 

I’m so hungry when we break for lunch. I have 3 helpings of pork roast, 2 bacon and tomato sandwiches, and when the bell finally rings I am still hungry. My stomach feels sick though during gym. I want to go own to Ms. Posibelf’s but I think better of it. I muscle through the rest of the day. Penny says she’s going to the library after final period to research but I don’t feel up to it. I just go back to my dorm and sleep. I hope she finds something to help. I feel awful.

  
  


**Baz**

I saw Bunce going into the library, I assumed Snow was with her, so I decided to run up to Mummer’s House, but instead I find him laying in bed in the dark, with the windows shut. “Alright there Snow?” I ask, with as much venom as I can to mask the honest sentiment.

“Fuck off Baz, I’m not in the mood.” He says without lifting his head, he must really be unwell. 

“Thought you’d be off with your pet Bunce.” I shoot back.

“No, she’s at the library, trying to help me out of this mess you got me into.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about Snow.”

“Sure you don’t,” he says turning to meet my eyeline, “I don’t know if you used your powers on her or what, made her see things differently, but I know what happened,” he says. I do start to panic, I didn’t think he would remember. 

“I was found,” he pauses, “well, the way I am, with you and you expect me to believe you had nothing to do with it? Why were you there Baz? Hmm?”

He’s right. I did do this to him. Even if he could never understand why, I did turn Simon Snow into a vampire. 

I can’t deny it. I can’t lie to him, but I also can’t explain. I simply turn and walk out of Mummer’s House, ignoring the insults he yells at me as I descend the stairs. 

I did this to him. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s use of needle in this chapter.
> 
> Catacombs and chill?

**Penny**

“Sorry Si, I couldn’t find anything in the library last night. I’ll check again tonight, but I don’t think the Mage left any books like that here.” I explain to him in line to get lunch. He’s piling his bowl with beef stew and butter rolls. 

“It’s okay Pen, thanks for trying,” he says somberly. He looks terrible. He started off okay this morning, I thought maybe he’d be fine, but now his eyes look dark and sunken in, I’ve seen Baz like that, I think. 

He follows me to the salad bar, sometimes he likes getting the croutons, but mostly he just keeps me company in line. 

“What is that?” he asks when we get there.

“What?” I ask.

“That. Do they normally have that?” he asks again, almost frantic. 

“What? Looks like Cook Pritchard added rare seared steak to the menu.”

With that, Simon abandoned his bowl and piled a plate high with salad and steak. 

I looked at him questioning. 

“What?” he asks innocently, “didn’t feel like having stew.”

I just nod and walk to the table with him. Even Agatha raises an eyebrow at his dinner choice. I shrug. There’s so much about this I can’t explain. Like how when I go back to the library that night, there’s a book on vampirism sitting in the middle of the magical ailments section, that definitely wasn’t there yesterday. 

**Baz**

I can’t play rugby. I had the coach bench me for the week. I said I sprained my wrist practicing. It isn’t a total lie. My wrist isn’t up to playing, but not from practice. It’s been 4 days since Simon turned, and every night when he’s asleep I let him drink some of my blood. I can handle it. I just need to do some extra hunting to keep up. It’s not enough though. He’s going to need to start taking care of himself. I asked Cook Pritchard to add some raw meat to the menu, just to ease him into the taste of animal blood, and I left one of my books in the library for Bunce to find. I don’t really need it anyway, I have it memorized. 

She corners me one day on my way to potions class. 

“You’ve been feeding him, haven’t you?” she asks or accuses, I’m not quite sure. “The book says he can’t go more than a few days without blood, it’s been almost a week, especially for a new vampire. You’ve been giving him blood like you did that first night, right?” 

I look at her curiously.

“I saw your hand,” she explains as if she read my thoughts. 

I nod. 

“Have you been cutting yourself every night?” she asks.

I shrug, trying to look as indifferent as possible. 

She nods and turns away, but later that night she slips an IV catheter into my robe pocket as we leave the dining hall. I think she’s been stealing supplies from Ms. Posibelf’s office. I can’t think of another place she could have gotten all that medicine from that night.

The next two nights I just have to turn a valve to drain into a mug. I really do need to appreciate her more. 

**Simon**

Penny did find a book in the library eventually and I’ve been studying it like she said I should. We’re at dinner and I’m enjoying my steak salad, using the book to hide my mouth. Penny put another book jacket onto it so everyone will think I am just studying, which I don’t think is any less suspicious, but we’re trying. 

“Pen,” I say, “I need your help with something.” 

She leans in so we don’t have to worry about being overheard. 

“I think I need to,” I pause, I don’t like talking about this, “hunt, or whatever. The longest I’ve ever seen Baz go without hunting is 4 days, and I’ve been like this for a week. I don’t think the steak can hold me over much longer.”

“What do you want me to do?” Penny asks.

“Can you, well, can you help me catch some rats? That’s what Baz does, I think. Goes down to the catacombs, I just, I’ve never done anything like that before.” 

She sits back, “Si, I don’t think I can help you with that. I don’t know anymore about rat catching than you do.” Agatha looks up from her dinner at that. “Mage training,” Penny explains and she seems to buy it, she really doesn’t like getting involved in that kind of thing. 

“But you do know someone who does have some practice at it,” Penny says when Agatha is no longer paying attention. 

Really? She wants me to ask _him_ for advice? I turn and look at him for a moment, he’s sitting with Dev and Niall at their normal table. “Be serious Penny,” I say when I turn back to her. She just shrugs. 

**Baz**

Simon is awake when I’m ready to leave for the catacombs, I don’t have to hide it anymore, I realized this week. Not that I ever _tried_ to hide it. I denied it, but Simon figured it out pretty quickly. 

“Can I come with you,” he asks from his bed. 

“What?”

“Can I come with you?” He asks again. He looks down at the floor, “I’m hungry…” he explains. 

I don’t say anything and he takes that as an answer. He follows me down to the catacombs. I raise my hand for him to stop when we reach a corridor I like starting with. We don’t speak but he watches as I crouch down and wait for them to scurry around my shoes before I rapidly reach down and drain about 8. I snap their necks against the floor before I bite, it’s more humane to kill them first. 

I stand up and lean back against the wall, eyeing at him. 

He takes his cue, fangs out, eagerly waiting for second dinner. He crouches like I did but stumbles when he tries to catch one. Scrambling across the floor in pursuit. It’s almost cute. It’s strange, when I do this I feel vile. He looks. Well. He looks like Snow. Of course he would be adorable hunting rats, he’s gorgeous in everything he does. His fangs don’t scare me now. I like the way the moonlight catches them through the window when he sleeps. I like the small scratch that is always on his lip after meals but is always gone by the time we return to the dining hall next. 

He pouts when the rat he was chasing runs into the wall but grabs one next to him and smiles at me holding it up like it’s a prized fish. I have to turn away to avoid smiling. 

I join in the hunt. He’s getting faster. Not as fast as me, but he’ll learn. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Simon**

I’m getting better at hunting. Baz has been helping me. He won’t speak to me at all when we walk to the catacombs and he still sneers at me in between classes, but once we are down there he’ll talk. We are equals below the surface. I’m not the Mage’s heir, he’s not a Grimm-Pitch, we’re just Simon and Baz, sharing our strange secret lives. 

“It’s nice not to do this alone,” he says one night and I’m surprised, it’s the first time he’s ever seemed happy that I’m around him. “I liked the quietness of it, but it feels less strange when someone else is doing it too,” he explains.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “I’m having a hard enough time as it is and I have you to teach me, I can’t imagine trying to work it all out for yourself.” 

He nods, “especially so young,” he adds.

I forget how young he was when it happened. Just a boy. I look him over, watch him as he casually reaches down and picks up a rat beside him, not breaking his stride. Of course he looks cool hunting rats, Baz would look cool doing anything. I smile at him. I’m almost impressed at the man he’s become. I think about him as a young tot, losing his mother, struggling to learn this life all alone. I think of who he was when I met him and who he is now before me. I don’t know if a young Simon would recognize him. He seems so much gentler, I wonder if it’s always been there and I am just now beginning to see it. 

I realize I’ve stopped walking, Baz notices too. 

“You alright?” he asks.

I’m going to have to do this alone. The school year will end, and I’ll be back in a care home, and I’ll have to do this alone. 

Baz is standing in front of me waiting for an answer, but I can’t tell him. He’s dealt with this alone for so long, I’d be selfish to complain about a few months. 

“Yeah,” I say instead, “I’m alright. 

**Baz**

I don’t know how I’m going to go back to doing this alone once the school year ends. Simon will be alright, he’s been a quick study for maybe the first time in his life. It was stupid to let myself get used to this. To let him in, when I know he has to leave. 

**Simon**

The rest of term goes by uneventfully. We finish classes, finals, Baz returned to the rugby team to complete the season. The Mage doesn’t find out I’m a vampire, I can say that sometimes now. It’s still hard to say the words, but Penny helps, Baz a bit too. He gets uncomfortable when I talk about it too much though, I’m not sure why. Sometimes he’ll be fine. We’ll talk through the morning without incident, but other times I’ll say a phrase and he tenses up and changes the subject. Once or twice he has just left. Turned and walked out, leaving me to find my way back. I believe Penny, when she says he didn’t do anything. I remember the other vampire now. He jumped out at me when I was checking the warehouse, and Penny says she thinks she saw him in the corner, but she was distracted and didn’t pay that much attention to something that was already dead. The rest of the details are still foggy. I’ve asked Baz but he won’t talk about it. He never explains why he was there or if was the one that saved me from the other vampire. 

We leave Watford and I go back to the care home. The first week is difficult. I had to find a place to get rats. It took me a while. In a desperate attempt, I did steal a squirrel from a dog. Eventually I found a dumpster behind a restaurant that I could find some in. Though I reek of fryer grease after. I told the other boys I got a job there working the night shift to explain my absence and the smell. 

One night as I am leaving the care home to go hunt, I find Baz leaning against his car across the street. 

“Baz? What are you doing here?” I ask. 

“Want to go for a drive?” he asks, in response. 

I get in the car. I probably should ask how he knows where I live, but I probably don’t want the answer, and honestly I don’t really care. He’s here, that’s all that matters. 

“How has your hunting been going?” he asks finally.

“Good,” I say, “I found a dumpster with a decent supply of rats.” I don’t tell him about the squirrel. 

He smiles, “that’s not bad, Chosen One.” 

I ask him about his summer and he tells me about his little sister’s new found affinity for fire spells and how he had to extinguish himself one afternoon. Luckily, he explains, it didn’t permeate his undershirt, but he lost a perfectly fine dress coat. 

Suddenly Baz stops the car on the side of the road and motions for me to get out. 

“Hungry?” he asks and I nod. 

“I thought I might teach you how to hunt larger game, fancy some venison?”

That becomes the start of a bi-nightly tradition. Every other day, Baz arrives outside the care home and we drive. One night we didn’t even hunt, we just drove to the shore to watch the sunrise. 

We settle into an easy routine and then one night I ask, “Baz, what happened that night in the warehouse?” Only this time he answered. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Baz**

I know he’ll hate me once I tell him. That I was the one that did this to him. I turned him into a monster, a freakish beast, and now he suffers with me, a fate worse than death. I think of Father’s disappointment when he found out, I think of what my mother would think of her son. But I can’t lie to him anymore. I tell him everything, that I followed him out of concern, that I killed the vampire, that I couldn’t watch him die and I did the only thing I thought I could. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks when I finish.

“Would you have believed me?” 

“Yes,” he says immediately, but I give him the look, “okay, perhaps not,” he amends,

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“For what? You saved my life.”

“Strictly speaking, I ended your life.”

“No, Baz. That other vampire killed me, you gave me more time with Penny, more time to finish school, to learn and experience things. Plus,” he adds, “if you hadn’t have done what you did, we never would have become friends.”

“We’re friends?” I ask.

“Of course! I love spending time with you. You’re actually pretty cool when you’re not being a twat.” He pokes and my ribs and we smile. 

We smile a little longer and then Simon takes my hand and kisses my wrist. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys!! I had this idea this morning and now this is a completed, posted, 4.5+ thousand word short story. I feel very accomplished. To those of you who weren’t scared off by the tags, I hope you enjoyed the fluffy times. Or as close to fluff as I ever write lol. Thank you for reading! Much love to you all!


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